Under the scheme, Paris will provide each family with a nest egg of €6,000 ($8,000) for when they go back to their country of origin.

Depositing the stipend at a bank in the migrant's home country is prudent. In addition to helping insure those who're paid to leave actually do head back home, it will also increase support for the initiative in the governments of those countries relative to simply giving the stipend to the migrant and telling him to be on his way. From the Morrocan government's perspective, France is saying: "This guy left your country a few years ago. Now he's coming back. Congratulations, your economy just received an $8,000 injection for free."

Critics will argue that $8,000 comes nowhere near making up for the entitlements to be accrued by a migrant who elects to remain in France. Stateside, low-skilled workers create an annual net taxpayer liability of over $22,000 per capita. While ascertaining demographic attributes in France is even more difficult than in the US, since the French government doesn't inquire about the race or ethnicity of its residents, in 2002 a private thinktank found that half of the foreign-born in France do menial jobs compared to the one-quarter of natives who do, are twice as likely to be unemployed as their native cohorts, and are three times as likely as natives to make only the minimum wage. The French entitlement structure is even more generous to the impoverished than the one in the US is. So it's safe to assume that for most of the migrants the new initiative will apply to, recouping the $8,000 given up will only take a matter of months.

Undoubtedly, $8,000 is a bargain from a French economic perspective. But that's exactly why Sarkozy is right to give it a shot. And a couple of factors are working in his favor.

The difference between real purchasing power and the official exchange rate for money moving from a developed nation like France to virtually anywhere in northern Africa or the Near East is going to differ substantially, to the benefit of those returning home to enjoy their deposit. In Azerbaijan, for example, that $8,000 will buy about as much stuff as $35,000 will buy in France. And with a per capita income of $7,300, the stipend will be akin to a 13-month severance pay back home.

Notice that the proposed stipend is for legal immigrants. For those who've entered the country illegally, the Sarkozy government is unequivocally opposed to any sort of amnesty:

Hortefeux is also talking tough when it comes to dealing with illegal immigration, insisting that there are no plans for a mass legalization of the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 illegals in France.

Contrast that to the disaster our derelict elites are trying in secret to force upon us. Sarkozy has frequently been portrayed as being amiable toward the US, claiming his nation can learn a few things from us. I'd say we can learn a few things from France as well. Perhaps other Congressional representatives will pick up on what most of the GOP Presidential contenders already have--flooding the US with low-skilled, unhealthy, uneducated, impoverished, culturally-backward third-worlders for the short-term benefit of big business and long-term gain of big government entitlements is not something the public wants any part of, and that if you force it upon us, there will be hell to pay.

The new minister voiced concern that the majority of legal immigration into France was that of existing immigrants bringing in relatives, while only a small proportion were granted visas due to their professional skills.

"To be integrated, you need language skills and a professional activity," he told RFI, and said he is considering introducing a language test to prospective immigrants.

This is so blatantly obvious. A nation should 'recruit' people for the same reason any other entity does--to benefit the entity. Whether it be a sports team, a business, or an elite university, these entities want people who'll increase their success, their profitability, and their prestige. The desirable standard of living that the nations of the Occident can boast should be leveraged as a competitive advantage to take in the most prosperous, assimilated immigrants possible.

For the French plan to be effective, of course, a severe restricting of family-based naturalization will have to be enforced, and tougher measures will have to be taken to remove illegal immigrants already in the country as well as to keep more illegal immigrants from coming in. Fortunately, that stance is gaining momentum across the EU.

5 comments:

But I do think we in Europe no longer need or want any more immigration.

This is a crowded continent, 800 millions I am told, some places in Germany, England and the Lowlands are vast expanses of suburb enclosing a few old towns and cities.

We dont need anyone else, and a small population drop would not be that bad! Nor would expelling the 20 - 30 millions of non Europeans.

I think I would prefer a population drop, then flooding ourselves with immigrants.

If the immigrants were to leave, that would ease the pressure on land, water, energy, etc...

It would defuse many a hatred and resentment, would save us all a shit load of money that could be used as tax cuts to spur the economies of Europe thus creating wealth and opportunity for Europeans. This would mean we would be able, if we chose, to have more then one child each, thus halting or slowing the population decline!

Immigrants would be better off at home, among their own people, in their own culture, speaking their language, practicing their own religion.

I have no hatred toward them, I just know they would be more at ease with their own, just as I am with my own and you with your's.

So instead of our elites using immigrants as a their own personal fifth column, with which they can undermine and weaken our ancient nations, assault our religion, marginalise our valid demands or objections to such things as unregulated immigration!

Let us hope that this news from France is the begining of something beautiful!

We see the same trend in the US. A larger foreign-born population puts upward pressure on housing and living costs, making family-starting a more expensive venture. Then, the lack of fecundity leads to elites calling for more immigration, reiforcing that birth dearth. It's a vicious circle.

A conspicuous flaw in the leftist argument that we must do more for the third-worlder in our midst is that by accusing the West of being racist, intolerant, etc, these leftists should also be discouraging the third-worlders from coming here. If the Occident is so awful, why subject migrants to it?

We can do a great deal more by encouraging less developed countries to find their own ways into modernity. Paying people to return home is a freebie for these countries, and is an act of magnanimity, really.

America's politicians may have a similar take on immigrants (those here illegally and those with green card visas). In fact both countries, France and America are pandering to the immigrants in a way that appears to be a system of white guilt or backlash. The money that GOP spends on campaigning to attract the minority vote is no pandering no more and no less than the pandering to deport the immigrants in France. Perhaps this guilt arises from the fact that the minorities are almost always for the most part poorer and less educated even after living in a country for generations and the whites believe they must be partially responsible for this; that there must be horrible flaws in their western system. The fact of the matter is that the divides between ethnicities brings hatred from both sides, when cultural pride and lifestyles of the two groups have so little in common. Border control has become less of an issue than in the history of the world due to technology and so much advancement. But a world without borders is the same as anarchy and cannot be allowed to exist at any cost.

There is a crucial difference in putting in place a pay-to-leave program and granting surreptitious amnesty to immigrants illegally in country--the former enjoys some level of public support, the latter virtually none.